Sugar cane cultivation(甘蔗种植) originated in southwest Asia, where Marco Polo reported in his     1     (know) journals that the Chinese used dark brown sugar freely without additional refining(提炼). Sugar can cultivation spread from southwest Asia     2     the Middle East and the Mediterranean trade circle in the twelfth and thirteenth     3     (century).

In the fourteenth century, the island of Cyprus was the location of major sugar farms,     4     (use) Syrian and Arab slaves as labor. Sugar cane cultivation was made a science in the fifteenth century in Sicily, with the     5     (invent) of the roller mill to speed up     6     process. In those times, brown sugar was a byproduct of sugar refining, and wasn't used widely in cooking     7     the people in the sixteenth century found its real value.

Brown sugar     8     (come) into popular use with the rise of European sugar plantations in the Caribbean in the 1700s. It was widely used as a sweetener in English and     9     (it) colonies(殖民地) because it was much     10     (cheap) than white sugar. The use and export of brown sugar from islands rose with the trade.

It was Sunday, December 7, 1941. It looked like it was going to be a normal day     1     board. Just then there was a huge crashing sound from above. The ship shook     2     (violent) and the crew looked at each other in horror. Above their heads, hundreds of Japanese planes circled like eagles. They were diving down to drop bombs on Pearl Harbor. Moments later, a bomb     3     (hit) the USS Arizona.

The surprise attack came as     4     great shock to the whole nation. The next day, President Roosevelt made his famous Pearl Harbor Speech,     5     (ask) the US Congress to declare war on Japan. In response to the attack and the president's address, the US joined World War II. Today, the USS Arizona lies     6     it sank: in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.     7     (it) location is marked with a memorial shaped like a bridge, which crosses the ship's     8     (sink) remains. Nearly 80 years has passed,     9     the attack on Pearl Harbor, one of the darkest episodes in American history, will never     10     (forget).

Nicolaus Copernicus was very frightened when he found all his calculations led to the same     1     (conclude) that the earth was not the center of the solar system. Only if you put the sun there did the movements of the other planets in the sky make sense. Yet the     2     (power) church believed God had made the world and     3     that reason the earth must be the center of the solar system.

Copernicus collected observations of the stars and used all his mathematical knowledge     4     (explain) them. But only his new theory could do that. He worked on his theory, gradually improving it. He placed     5     fixed sun at the center of the solar system with the planets going round it and only the moon still going round the earth. He also suggested that the earth was spinning as it went round the sun. In 1514 he showed his theory     6     (private) to his friends, who encouraged him to publish his ideas, but Copernicus was cautious and was afraid of getting     7     (attack) by the Christian Church.

The Christian Church rejected his theory,    8     (say) it was against God's idea. Yet Copernicus' idea is now the basis on which all our ideas of the universe     9     (build). His theory replaced the Christian idea of gravity,    10     said things fell to earth because God created the earth as the center of the universe.

The horse-head bronze statue lost from Yuanmingyuan in 1860     1     (return) to the site of the former royal resort last Tuesday.

The statue was one of 12 Chinese zodiac animals(生肖). But they     2     (rob) by the invading English and French forces in 1860. Yuanmingyuan was also destroyed at that time.

The horse-head statue is so far the first animal-head statue     3     (come ) back to Yuanmingyuan,     4     was donated by the late Macau businessman Stanley Ho to the country last year, and the National Cultural Heritage Administration recently handed it over     5     the administration of Yuanmingyuan ruins.

The statue will be     6     (regular) displayed in the Zhengjue Temple area. The temple is one of a few     7     (site) that generally remain complete to date. More than 10 million yuan ($1.52 million) was spent by the Haidian district government to improve facilities to ensure its     8     (safe).

Seven of the 12 statues     9     (include) the horse have returned to China, and the rest six are now housed in     10     National Museum of China.

A deafening boom roars through Pompeii's crowded marketplace. The ground shakes     1     (violent), throwing shoppers off balance. People scream and point toward Mount Vesuvius, a massive volcano     2     rises above them.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, Pompeii was a busy southern Italian city. But in 79, the nearby Mount Vesuvius volcano erupted. Almost overnight, Pompeii and many of its 10,000 residents disappeared under     3     blanket of ash.

Pompeii was basically forgotten until it     4     (rediscover) in 1748. Thanks     5     diggings, scientists have been able to figure out almost exactly what happened on that terrible day.

After the volcano first erupted shortly after noon, the thick ash turned everything black. Some residents escaped the city, while others took shelter in their homes. But the ash kept     6     (fall). Piles grew as deep as nine feet in some places, blocking doorways.

    7     (base) on what they uncovered, scientists believe that Pompeii was a prosperous town popular with     8     (wealth) Romans. Well-paved streets had high sidewalks. To relax, people soaked in public baths and enjoyed plays in two theaters.

Pompeii may be ancient history, but scientists are pretty sure Mount Vesuvius is overdue for another major     9     (explode). Luckily the people living near the volcano today will likely receive     10     (warning) before it blows.

When the Titanic was built, people assumed it would never sink. So,     1     it sank on its first journey, the news surprised everyone greatly. The Titanic was built in Belfast, Ireland. Its makers spent a great deal of money     2    (build) the extraordinary ship. When it was finished, it was the     3     (large) and most comfortable ship ever built.

The Titanic set sail on 10 April 1912. “I had wanted to set foot on the Titanic ever since it was built,” said Molly Brown, a Titanic     4    (survive). “I never imagined it would sink！” On 13 April, the Titanic was sailing     5     full speed towards New York. The captain,     6     had received warnings about icebergs all day, had dismissed the warnings as they arrived. At 2.20 a. m.，the Titanic sank into the sea. It had hit     7     iceberg just over two hours before. Of the 2,208 people aboard the ship, only 705 survived.

Explorer Robert Ballard     8    (search) for the Titanic for more than 20 years before he found it. “When new technology was developed, we used it to send     9    (camera) down into the sea.     10    (final),we found the ship.”With the cameras, he was able to find the hole along the side of the ship which had caused it to fill with water and sink.

Economic development is necessary if we want to improve society. There comes a time     1     the old must give way to the new.     2     (keep) the right balance between progress and the protection of cultural sites can be a big challenge. Big challenges, however, can sometimes lead to great     3     (solve). In order to benefit the area, the Egyptian government wanted to build a new dam     4     the Nile. But the     5     (propose) led to protests. Later, a committee       6     (establish) to limit damage to the Egyptian buildings and prevent the     7     (lose) of cultural relics. Temples and other cultural sites were taken down piece by piece, and then moved and put back together again in a place     8     they were safe from the water. When the project     9     (end) in 1980, it was considered     10     great success.

"Take good care of yourself, my darling, not just for your own sake, but for mine also," wrote     1     unknown serviceman stationed in the Waziristan region.

The letter is one of the 717 that were never delivered by the ship, the SS Gairsoppa, which     2    (destroy) off the coast of Ireland by a German U-boat on February 16th, 1941. Of the 86 crew members     3     board, only one survived.

With a     4    ( hand) of the more complete letters displayed in an exhibition at the Postal Museum in London in 2018, the museum has been working on the more damaged letters intending     5    (expose ) wartime lives.

Two other letters are from a father to his children in Torquay,     6     the museum believes they may have escaped. The father wrote, “Mummy will send you back to Wycombe sooner or later. Meanwhile we all have to make the     7    (good) of things as they are: the war has upset most people's dreams and     8     (mode) of living including mine!”

“It feels somewhat mournful and appropriate to unite these letters on the     9    (eighty) anniversary of the ship's sinking,"   said conservator Jackie Coppen. "It is inevitable that while     10     (piece) the letters together I have come to form a close relationship with them.”

Earth Day, April 22, was founded in 1970     1    a day of education about environmental issues.

The holiday is now a global celebration     2    is sometimes extended into Earth Week, a full seven days of events focused on green living.

By the early 1960s, Americans were becoming aware of the effects of pollution on the environments. Rachel Carson’s 1962 bestseller Silent Spring pointed out the dangerous effects of pesticides(杀虫剂) on     3    American countryside. Later in the decade, a 1969 fire on Cleveland’s Guyahoga River threw light on the problem of chemical waste disposal. Until that time,     4     (protect) the planet’s natural resources was not part of the     5     (nation) political plan. Only a small portion of the American population was familiar with environmental issues.

Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1962, Senator (参议员) Gaylord Nelson was determined     6     (convince) the federal government that the planet was at risk. In the fall of 1969, Nelson,     7     (consider) one of the leaders of the modern environmental movements, announced the Earth Day concept at a conference in Seattle and     8     (invite) the entire nation to get involved. He later recalled: “Telegrams, letters, and telephone     9     (inquire) poured in from across the country.” The American people     10     (final) had an opportunity to express their concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes and air.